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This wikiHow teaches you how to upload a new thumbnail to a YouTube video on your channel. If you don't want to upload a thumbnail, you can always use an existing thumbnail instead. Since you can't change your video's thumbnail on mobile, you'll need to use a computer for this process.

Steps

1

Open YouTube. Go to https://www.youtube.com/ in your computer's web browser. Doing so will open your YouTube home page if you're logged in.

If you aren't logged into your YouTube account, click SIGN IN in the top-right corner of the page, then enter your email address and password when prompted.

2

Click your profile icon. It's the circular photo (or initial) in the top-right corner of the page. A drop-down menu will appear.

3

Click YouTube Studio (beta). You'll see this in the drop-down menu. Doing so opens the YouTube Studio page.

While this feature is currently in beta, it will eventually become the default YouTube Studio option, at which point it will probably say YouTube Studio instead.

4

Click the Videos tab. It's on the left side of the page. You should see a list of your videos appear.

5

Select a video. Find the video for which you want to change the thumbnail, then click its title. The video's page will open.

6

Click the THUMBNAIL tab. It's at the top of the video's page.

7

Click SELECT IMAGE FILE. This blue link text is near the bottom of the page. Clicking it prompts a File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac) window to appear.

If you want to use an existing thumbnail that was selected by YouTube, you'll instead click the thumbnail you want to use above the SELECT IMAGE FILE section. You can then skip to the last step in this article.

8

Select a photo. Go to the location of the photo you want to use as the thumbnail, then click once the photo to select it.

9

Click Open. It's in the bottom-right corner of the window. Doing so uploads the photo to your video's page.

On a Mac, you might click Choose instead.

10

Click SAVE. This blue button is in the top-right corner of the page. Your new thumbnail will be saved.

When I look at the list view, none of the thumbnails have changed, even though I have selected a thumbnail, it's not over 2MB, and it shows it selected. I save my changes, but it is still not reflecting. What should I do?

wikiHow Contributor

Community Answer

Most of the time, YouTube will not show that the thumbnail has changed until you leave the video manager, though it has changed.